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Washington, DC - The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) today announced the publication of the Financial Management Line of Business (FMLoB) Common Government-wide Accounting Classification (CGAC) structure. The FMLoB is one of the President’s top management priorities to achieve government-wide cost and quality improvements in financial management. The CGAC structure supports the FMLoB vision to improve the cost, quality and performance of financial management systems by standardizing business processes, interfaces and data.

“The federal government needs to reduce the data and process variability within and among federal agencies,” said Dr. Linda Combs, Controller, Office of Management and Budget. “This standard will have significant benefits and impact when implemented.”

The CGAC structure is a standard way to code and categorize financial transactions. CGAC establishes a standard financial structure across all agencies that will be recognized on a government-wide basis, similar to the way the ATM standard is recognized and used by all banks. It includes data needed for internal and external reporting and provides flexibility for agency mission-specific needs. The standard will be implemented over the next several years as agencies modernize their financial systems.

"This common accounting classification is an historic step forward to better management of federal spending," said Kevin Messner, Acting Associate Administrator, Office of Government-wide policy. "Accounting for spending the same way across government just makes sense, and will lead to more accurate and more cost conscious budgeting."

The new CGAC structure also promotes consistent use of the terms and concepts, and establishes a uniform structure for capturing data about them. Although high level standards existed, they did not provide sufficiently detailed definitions and structures needed to achieve consistency. Until now, the classification structures used in financial systems varied from agency to agency and often from bureau to bureau within the same agency.

“The benefits of fully implementing CGAC will provide decision makers with significantly better access to timely and accurate information,” said Mary J. Mitchell, GSA Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Technology Strategy. “GSA is proud to lead this project and we would like to thank the many financial professionals from both government and the private sector who contributed in creating the CGAC structure. We look forward to our continued collaboration as we move forward on the standardization of government financial management practices.”

With the adoption of the CGAC structure, agency systems will be better able to capture and report financial information in a consistent manner. These improvements will assist senior managers in better allocating resources where needed.

The CGAC structure was developed by the GSA’s Financial Systems Integration Office and an interagency work group under the guidance of the Chief Financial Officers Council.

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Did You Know? The CGAC structure is a standard way to code and categorize financial transactions.